End of Year Book Survey

Found via Lianne @ Caffeinated Life, hosted by Jamie @ Perpetual Page Turner. I will post my general annual review tomorrow, but I like the idea of having more than one way to look back on the year. This survey looks at specific books read.

• 2014 Reading Stats
• Number of books read -76 (I will finish Fluent Forever tomorrow). My goal was 75. Hurrah! 
• Number of re-reads – Four: The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Fault in Our Stars and Throwaway Daughter. I didn’t read White is for Witching, which I have read every year since it’s release. D: Moving in August messed up so many of my reading habits. Dang ;_; Book blogging has made me conscious of how many books I want to read, which has led to a decrease in my rereading. There are so many books I have read and loved, though, I want to revisit them. I think in 2015 I shall try to reread 12 favourites.
• Genre you read the most from – Unknown. I don’t shelve my read books by genre (maybe I should…). I tried to judge from scanning the covers but it looks my reading was pretty varied this year!
• Best in Books
• Best book read – I don’t read many books from a single genre (which is to say, these genres didn’t have a lot of contenders) but it lets me list more than one favourite so I’m doing it that way 😉
• Best YA – I’ll Give you the Sun by Jandy Nelson
• Best fantasy – The Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
• Best literary fiction – Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
• Best spooky – The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• Best non-fiction – This Star Won’t Go Out by Esther, Lori and Wayne Earl (though I wrote one of my final university papers on the ethics of publishing this book, it is an extraordinarily moving read)
• Book you were excited about and thought you were going to love more but didn’t – All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld. The cover and description had me excited, but the story didn’t grab me.
• Most surprising book read –  I’ll Give You the Sun. I can’t remember a book that made me gasp in shock so many times.
• Book you ‘pushed’ the most people to read (and they did) – Ehm, whether they read it is uknown but I strongly recommended I’ll Give You the Sun and The Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender to my friends who read YA and trust my recommendations.
• Best series started – I don’t read series.
• Best sequel – The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson (Book wwo of The Girl of Fire and Thorns)
• Best conclusion – Undivided by Neal Shusterman (I wouldn’t normally give this book a ‘best’ distinction but it was the only conclusion I read this year)
• Favourite author discovered – Ooh, split between Hannah Kent (Burial Rites) and Leslye Walton (Ava Lavender). I look forward to whatever these authors publish next.
• Best book from a genre you don’t typically read – I’ll Give You the Sun. I’m extraordinarily picky about YA; I only read a couple a year. I’m not usually too impressed but this book connected with me.
• Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book – The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson. I won this book in a giveaway during the summer and felt in the right mood for it last week. I blazed through it, though it’s also not something I usually read, being YA and fantasy. Something about it had me hooked!
• Most likely to reread next year – Ava Lavender and The Haunting of Hill House. Ava I really enjoyed and would like to revisit. Haunting is a good seasonal read, I think, and could benefit from a few rereads.
• Favourite cover – Ava Lavender and Burial Rites are contenders but how about I go with All the Birds, Singing to mix it up a bit. 
• Most memorable character – Elinor from The Haunting of Hill House. It’s not often I identify with a character. Elinor surprised me in that way.
• Most beautifully written – Ava Lavender or Burial Rites. I can’t choose between favourites! 
• Most thought-provoking/life-changing – I didn’t read any book like that this year. Possibly The Haunting of Hill House because it made me think a lot and want to read more in the genre. Anything that drives a change in my reading habits can be ‘life-changing’ for me!
• Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2014 to finally read – Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. I’m a Canadian…I majored in children’s literature...how did I miss this one?? (Disclaimer: the first chapter was assigned in one of my uni courses.)
• Favourite passage/quote -“I am knifed to the hilt with fate” (Burial Rites). I considered a number of passages from Burial Rites and The Haunting of Hill House, but this one I think stood out the most to me.
• Shortest book – Not counting novellas, The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida (135 pages)
• Longest book – It’s always my one volume edition of The Lord of the Rings… second longest was The Secret History by Donna Tartt (658 pages).
• Most shocking book – For me this is the same answer as most surprising book – I Will Give You the Sun. So many gasps, so many times I had to pause and let what happened sink in. 
• OTP of the year (you will go down with this ship!) – Elisa and Hector from The Girl of Fire and Thorns. Their relationship is so reasonable and realistic and believable, how can you not appreciate it, haha.
• Favourite non-romantic relationship – The sibling relationship between Jude and Noah in I’ll Give You the Sun. Often heartbreaking but wonderfully played out.
• Favourite book read by an author you read previously – The Haunting of Hill House.
• Best book read based solely on a recommendation from somebody else/peer pressure –  Burial Rites. The plot summary didn’t intrigue me but so many bloggers cried ‘the prose!’ I felt I had to investigate. I’m very happy I did!!
• Newest fictional crush – Oscar from I’ll Give You the Sun. I can’t name any other book character I ever crushed on (well, maybe I have a crush on Faramir but who doesn’t?) but while reading this book I messaged my friend to tell her it featured a very hot British boy 😛
• Best 2014 debut –  The Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
• Best world-building – Well, it’s another no-contest if I include LotR, so that aside… difficult question! I think I’ll go again with Ava Lavender (surprise, surprise). The world isn’t especially sprawling or spectacular, but I like how the story is told over generations and you get to experience different locations and manifestations of magical abilities.
• Most fun to read – The Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy. A great fantasy adventure story, with a good dose of romance. I blazed through these books and had a fun time doing so.
• Book that made you cry – This Star Won’t Go Out. Hooooooly, you thought TFIOS was sad? I did too, but good lord, nothing can be sadder than this book (although I mentioned earlier I have mixed feelings about its existence, the part where Wayne writes about the moment of Esther’s death is powerful.)
• Hidden gem –The Swallow by Charris Cotter. This book didn’t get much attention but I thought it was sweet and a good ghost story.
• Book that crushed your soul – I’ll Give You the Sun (since I just used TSWGO for ‘book that made you cry’).
• Most unique book – Ahh, I don’t read many ‘unique’ books! I guess TSWGO because of its format.
• Book that made you most mad – The War on Science by Chris Turner. GARGHHHH HARPERRRRRRR. The subtitle of this book is “Muzzled Scientists and Wilful Blindness in Stephen Harper’s Canada”. It’s a pretty depressing exploration of the Harper government’s attitude towards scientific research and evidence.
• Your Bookish Life
• New favourite book blog discovered – Oooh, this is tough, almost all the blogs I follow I discovered this year!  I can’t call out just one. Take a peak at my blog roll in the sidebar 😉
• Favourite review on your blog – I’m proud of The Haunting of Hill House and A Tale for the Time Being, both of which made me consider what I really love about the books I love.
• Best non-review post on your blog – I don’t have many of these (I want to do more in the future)… I like some of the posts I did for Armchair BEA, such as this one on middle grade fiction. I loved doing this survey about my local library. So maybe these are ‘best’ in that I enjoyed writing them the most 😛
• Best event that you participated in – Ahh so difficult to choose ;_; I love the readathons…I loved armchair BEA (maybe I‘ll go with this because the fun lasted the longest :P) I loved doing the posts for summer library challenge…
• Best moment of bookish/blogging life – I love chatting with other bloggers in real time. One moment that I remember particularly was during the October Dewey’s 24 Read-a-thon. My breakfast plan (rice cooker oatmeal) was retweeted by the official account and I had some fun discussions with other readers about favourite breakfasts.
• Most popular post – Armchair BEA Giveaway, 55 comments and 327 views.
• Post you wished got a little more love – My review of “J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lost English Mythology“. I know it’s a niche essay, but it’s the first piece I was ever asked to review, so I want it to get some attention!
• Best bookish discovery – When I visited Osaka, my friend took me to a giant bookstore with six floors. Half of one floor was all English books – kid’s books, fiction, and non-fiction (including a large selection of academic non-fiction). I was delighted to be surrounded by so many English books for the first time in months.
• Completion of challenges/goals – My reading goal for this year was pretty general – “Read 75 books (including more non-fiction, books I own but haven’t read, books released in 2013 and 2014, books that have been on the TBR for a long time)”. I did read 75 books, and more books released recently. I’m not sure about the others, but I’m happy with what I read so I’d call that successful completion! (Always I will say “I need to read more non-fiction”)
• Looking Ahead
• One book you didn’t get to in 2014 but will make a priority in 2015 – Hah, there are dozens I could pick… The Road to Middle-Earth by Tom Shippey is one I meant to read all year but didn’t get around to it. I purchased the ebook so I’ll be tackling it early in the new year.
• Book you are most anticipating (non-debut) – I’m not big on watching ahead for new books but a few have made it onto my list. Now that the Unwind dystology is completed, I’m interested in Neal Shusterman’s Challenger Deep.
• Book you are most anticipating (debut) – Where All the Light Tends to Go by David Joy (he previously published a memoir; this is his first novel)
• Book you are most anticipating (sequel) – The Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne M Valente. I look forward to this new Fairyland book featuring a different main character.
• One goal for your reading/blogging life – read The Silmarillion. 
• 2015 release you’ve read and recommend – Alas, none ;_; A few of the books I’m excited about are on NetGalley, but not for Canadians.

Now that I’ve finished this survey, I realize my answers were fairly repetitive…a favourite book is a favourite because it does so many things well! I only read 4 five-star books this year (not counting re-reads), and 11 one or two star books. Next year I want to read more exceptional books and less mediocre ones. I’ve also just realized 2015 will be the first year in my reading life that I don’t have to do any required reading for school…hopefully this means I will have more time to find those exceptional reads!